Make your website mobile friendly – test the phone version in a free demo first

Why a mobile-friendly website matters

People looking for a restaurant, salon, clinic or local contractor in Japan usually find you through Google Maps or a search on their phone. If the first screen is hard to read, many leave before they see what you offer.

Search engines work the same way. Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means it evaluates your pages based on what the mobile version shows. Content that is missing or hard to use on a phone counts for less, however good the desktop version looks.

• The path to contact: can visitors tap your phone number to call, and fill in the form easily on a small screen?
• First impression: broken layouts and text that needs zooming make a business look neglected
• Search visibility: the mobile version is the one that gets evaluated
• Ad results: visitors from Google Ads or Instagram ads are almost all on phones, so the landing page decides whether the click pays off

Take your own phone and go from your home page all the way to a sent inquiry. Every spot where you hesitate is a spot to fix first.

How to check whether your site is mobile friendly

You can run a useful check without special tools. Try these points on an iPhone and an Android phone, ideally including a small-screen model.

• Body text is readable without zooming (around 16px is a good baseline)
• Nothing scrolls sideways and the layout fits the screen
• Buttons and links are spaced so you do not tap the wrong one
• The menu opens and closes, and key pages are two or three taps away
• Your phone number dials on tap and your address opens a map app
• Form fields are large enough and the send button is easy to find
• Images and videos fit the screen and load quickly

On a computer, Chrome's developer tools let you switch the window to a phone size. Google's PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse list mobile speed and usability issues in one report. If slow loading is the main problem, see how to improve site speed.

Three ways to go mobile and what they typically cost

There are three main routes. Costs depend heavily on page count and how the current site was built, so treat the notes below as general market guidance.

• Convert the current site to responsive: rewrite the HTML and CSS so the layout adapts to the screen width. For a small site of a few pages this typically runs from tens of thousands to a few hundred thousand yen; older code means more work
• Build a separate mobile site: a second version just for phones. Every update has to be made twice, so there is little reason to choose this today
• Rebuild mobile-first: design from the phone screen up. It usually costs more than a conversion, and it also fixes structure and makes updates easier

When you compare quotes, line up the same points: number of pages, how forms and booking are handled, whether images are replaced, and whether you can edit the site yourself afterwards. The price differences start to make sense.

When a rebuild is cheaper than a fix

Responsive conversion sounds like the small option, but on some sites patching page by page costs more time and money than starting fresh. The more of these apply, the stronger the case for a rebuild.

• Layouts are built with tables, or much of the text is inside images
• The site is over ten years old and its CMS or plugins are no longer updated
• Only an agency can make changes and you have no way to edit it yourself
• Besides mobile, the content, prices and photos are out of date too
• The site has no HTTPS and browsers show a warning

In these cases, rewriting old code for phones takes about as much effort as building new pages. For more on judging an ageing site, see when an outdated website needs a renewal, and for the rebuild itself, website redesign service.

Steps to a mobile-friendly site and what to prepare

Whichever route you take, the steps are much the same. A small site can typically go live in about a month.

• Review: list the pages that are hard to use on a phone and the ones people visit most
• Choose the route: conversion or rebuild, based on cost and ease of updates
• Design the phone screen: menu, the position of call and booking buttons, how much goes on one screen
• Build and optimize images: resize images so pages stay light on mobile data
• Test on real devices: send a form and tap to call on several phones
• Measure after launch: track mobile visits and inquiries in GA4

It helps to have ready: your current site address, hosting and domain details, admin logins, and your logo and photo files. Decide which single button matters most on a phone – call, booking or LINE – and the layout falls into place around it.

How UNANOBO makes sites mobile friendly: a free demo on your phone

Before you commit to anything, UNANOBO builds a free demo: a new, phone-friendly version of your current site based on your existing content and brand. You open it on your own phone, tap through it, and we work out together whether a conversion is enough or a rebuild makes more sense.

The process is simple: free demo, feedback, launch, growth. The founder handles every project personally, so you keep one contact from the first demo to improvements after launch. Everything runs by message, in Japanese or English.